


These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light

by irishavalon



Series: Visions Made of Flesh and Light [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Hair, Lady Loki, Loki's pronouns change a few times, Loki-centric, Thor being a good big brother, Thor: Ragnarok, pre-slash mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 04:33:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12719760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishavalon/pseuds/irishavalon
Summary: "Thor hasn’t asked Loki to do it. She highly doubts he expects her to do it. It’s been so long since he started to grow his hair for her, and so much has happened. Maybe he doesn’t even remember why he started growing his hair in the first place."Loki loves their long hair. It helps them express their gender identity, whichever one they're presenting as that day. But when all is said and done, they love their brother more.Or, Loki cuts his/her/their hair for Thor.





	These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a quote from Richard Siken's poem, "Scherazade." 
> 
> I just want the MCU to make Genderfluid!Loki canon. Is that so much to ask??

 “Are you my brother or my sister today?” Thor asks. It’s an old question, but Loki hasn’t heard it in years. He cannot speak for a moment; the words play over and over in his head, as though he is committing this moment to memory, though between them there have been thousands upon thousands of moments like this. But Loki can’t handle Thor asking that now, like so much hasn’t changed, like they are still children, before Odin called him anything but ‘son’ and ‘boy’, and Loki wept at Thor’s feet in fear of what Odin would say when he told him that sometimes he didn’t feel like a son or boy. He pushes the memories away, and puts Thor at arm’s length.

Loki raises his eyebrows, cocks his head, and gives Thor the ghost of a malicious smirk (the better to cover up the tainted joy coursing through his veins in spite of himself). He pushes Thor away, when all he wants--all he’ll never admit even to himself-- is to pull Thor closer. “Am I ‘your’ anything anymore?”

Thor doesn’t flinch back, just watches him for long moments before speaking. Loki waits for him to concede the point, to laugh it off. But in the end, Thor speaks, and his words shock Loki into a second of silence. For it is not agreement, not conspicuously at least, when he speaks up.

“Never doubt that I love you,” his brother says, and his expression is fond, almost kind, like he’s using the words to reach out to Loki the way he’d reached out to the Hulk in the arena on Sakaar. A peace offering, a promise, a--

Wait a minute. Loki knows these words. How dare his brother spit his words back to him like poison, dredging up old, cruel memories of a time Loki doesn’t want to return to, if he’s honest with himself (which is a rarity).

“I said that to you when I was lying, Thor.” He admits quietly. Is it still an admission if Thor knows this by now?

“You weren’t lying when you said that.” And he sounds so sure, so certain of something he can’t possibly know. But Loki can’t argue, because he himself doesn’t know if Thor is right or not. So much has changed since then. So much has passed that all Loki can think is how he feels right now, and he’d never admit that aloud.

After a long, long time, Loki chooses his next move. When he speaks, it’s quiet, and in the next second he’s chosen to flee. “Brother,” Loki murmurs in answer to Thor’s question, and then turns and leaves the room. Thor doesn’t follow him, doesn’t call him back, which is just as well. Loki feels eight years old again, feeling like he doesn’t belong. Not because he isn’t Odin’s child, not because he isn’t Asgardian, but because half the time when Odin calls him his ‘son,’ it’s like a knife twisting in his back.

  
  


The next evening Loki’s sulking in one of the common rooms on the ship. They probably should have known that with a name like ‘common room,’ they likely won’t be alone for long. But Thor knows where their room is located, and Loki is still hiding from their brother. They haven’t spoken to Thor since yesterday, and they don’t want to be found.

They take out a dagger and start to play with it, frowning deeply. On top of their anxiety, their constant feelings of being on edge today, expecting to see Thor around every corner in spite of the invisibility they’ve been casting on and off, it’s a flux day. On flux days, Loki’s gender swings like a pendulum, changing with little warning. Their clothes and body feel fine for the moment, but Loki has been feeling their gender rearranging itself within them constantly all day, and this moment is no different.

Not long after they start to notice their gender changing, the Valkyrie walks in, swinging a bottle loosely at her side. She only spares Loki a fleeting glance before crossing the room.

“Still alive are you?” she asks gruffly.

Loki’s mouth twists into a small, crooked smile. The nice thing about the Valkyrie-- arguably the only nice thing-- is that she’s always upfront. She’s like Thor in that respect, except that where it reveals itself in nobility and golden honor in Loki’s brother, the Valkyrie is an asshole. And Loki can’t help but enjoy her.

“I could say the same thing about you,” Loki counters, looking pointedly at the bottle in her hand when she looks at them. Valkyrie says nothing, only flips them off and turns away.

Valkyrie sits down on the opposite end of the room and drinks. Loki turns their attention back to the dagger in their hands. There is silence for a long while, the only sound being their breathing and the occasional gentle slosh of the liquid as the Valkyrie lifts the bottle to her lips. Loki feels the pendulum swinging slowly.

At last, the Valkyrie speaks. She doesn’t look at them, and her voice is flat and unimpressed. “Your brother has been looking for you all day.”

Loki doesn’t look at her when they respond, either. “We had a minor...disagreement yesterday.”

“See, that’s just the thing. Thor says you _didn’t_ have a fight. That maybe that was the problem. Are you spoiling for a fight? Because I’m bored and free for a spar.” Loki looks up and sees she’s rolling her eyes at them, like the offer isn’t so much an offer as an inconvenience.

“Stop talking now.” Loki counters, in the same bored, unimpressed voice.

“Makes no difference to me.” Valkyrie says, downing the rest of the bottle in one go and standing up to pour another glass from the cart against the wall.

A shadow falls over the doorway. Loki looks up to see the Hulk bending through the door. Hulk only spares them a single glance, but it sends Loki’s heart skittering into hyperdrive. Hulk’s lip curls and he snarls a bit, as if he can smell the fear Loki tries hard to control. Loki works at it, and barely contains their anxiety in a blank returning look. They feel themself sitting up a little straighter anyway, but all the Hulk does is roll his eyes and turn to walk toward the Valkyrie.

Forcing their heart to calm, the bile crawling up their throat to return to their stomach, and resisting the urge to flee again, they return their attention back to their dagger. They’re already itching with anxiety and dysphoria, and it’s a wonder the Hulk’s presence doesn’t send them spiralling into a full-blown panic attack. Loki takes one deep breath in through their nose and out through her mouth. _Calm down, calm down, calm down._ The pendulum swings and her mind chants. She focuses her attention on the Hulk and the Valkyrie’s conversation, because the Hulk says Thor’s name, and in spite of herself, Loki’s mind snatches onto her brother’s name like a lifeline. She always has, even when Thanos planted painful images in her mind, even when Thor left her for dead, even when Thor pushed her away in that elevator on Sakaar.

“Thor is sad,” the Hulk is saying. Loki sits up a little straighter. She knows this, Hulk knows this, Valkyrie knows this; so why is the monster telling her this?

“Hulk, he just lost his father, his kingdom, and his entire home planet, not to mention his eye. Sad is probably an understatement.” Evidently, the Valkyrie is just as confused.

“No, Thor is sad about his hair.” _That dumbass,_ Loki thinks.

“I don’t understand.”

“Thor misses his hair.”

“He _has_ hair.” _This_ dumbass.

“They cut his hair on Sakaar,” Loki reminds her, standing up and sheathing her dagger. It’s almost too much when Hulk turns to look at her; she wants to fall silent and never speak again. She waits for him to grab her by the ankles again, hesitant truce or no. But he doesn’t. She stays standing. And then Hulk inclines his massive head to her, as if they are in understanding. Does the great green brute trust her now? That’s a chilling thought, especially since Loki herself isn’t even sure she deserves his trust yet.

“What a dramatic little shit,” the Valkyrie says of Thor, rolling her eyes. Loki doesn’t answer, only leaves the room. The moment she closes the door behind her, she transforms into her woman body with a great sigh of relief. Some of the dysphoria and anxiety seeps away at the change in appearance.

She starts walking down the hallway. She intends to go to Thor’s room, to comfort him-- or more likely tease him mercilessly about being an angsty teenager too emotionally attached to his hair. She’s trying to figure out what she’s going to say to him to make him forget she’s been avoiding him for over twenty-four hours without having to talk about the last conversation they’d had.

Instead, memories bubble up out of nowhere in her mind. She’s sobbing at Thor’s feet again, as a child. She’s transformed her pants into a skirt in the privacy of Thor’s room, but the counterspell is on the tip of her tongue should Odin or Frigga knock. She told Frigga shortly after, and of course Frigga’d been more accepting than she thought possible. Loki doesn’t deserve a mother like Frigga, and she aches with it everyday.

_“He still calls me his son, Thor,” her younger self gasps out between sobs. “He’ll never see me as anything but a boy.”_

_“He doesn’t know, Loki,” Thor whispers back, rubbing Loki’s small, shaking back with the gentleness Thor had always handled Loki with. “He doesn’t know he’s wrong, and he doesn’t know it hurts you to call you that. He’d change in an instant, I know he would, if he knew.”_

 

The image changes.

_Loki sits in her bed, knees pulled up to her chest. She’s a few years older, and she doesn’t weep this time. Thor sits beside her, watching but saying nothing. He waits for Loki to tell him what’s wrong. It takes awhile sometimes, but Loki always spoke eventually, in those days._

_“Girls don’t have short hair.” She says at last, and Thor’s gaze softens further._

_“Some girls do. My friend Sif just chopped off all her hair, Loki! It’s so cool!”_

_“Mother does not have short hair, Thor. The maids do not. Name one Asgardian woman other than Sif or some of the other warriors with short hair.”_

_Thor can’t._

_“What will Father say?” Loki asks. “If I grow my hair long?”_

_“He calls you his daughter when you are a girl, and his child when you are neither. He would understand.”_

_Loki says nothing, unconvinced. After a moment, Thor says slowly, “If it would help… I will grow my hair long, too.”_

_Loki turns to him so quickly her neck hurts. “You would do that?” she asks._

_Thor takes Loki’s small hand in his. Already, Thor’s hands are larger, rougher, stronger than Loki’s. But he holds Loki’s hand like it’s a fragile baby bird. “Of course, I would, Loki. You are my sibling.”_

_“Sister,” Loki corrects. “Sister, today.”_

_“You are my sister,” Thor repeats with a soft smile._

 

And Thor does grow his hair. Loki knows that it has grown into a source of pride for her brother, outside of the original intentions. It becomes a symbol of his bravery in battle, and before her eyes, Loki starts to see the other warriors growing out their hair to match their prince’s golden locks. Even Sif.

But regardless of its purpose in Thor’s life now, Loki has always seen that long hair as a symbol of her brother’s love for her. In captivity on Thanos’s ship, in jail after the Battle of New York, even lying in bed late at night in the days she was pretending to be Odin, she focused her mind on that shining golden hair, sometimes losing herself in it and praying for Thor’s safety, for him to rescue her, to come visit her in her cell, before she came back to herself.

When she saw his short hair in the arena, she was certain she had finally lost his trust, lost his love. Not that she was surprised by that. The hatred had colored his words on that windswept moor in Norway after their father’s life force had dispersed and drifted away. The distrust had shown on his face when he ignored her, and then filled his voice when he didn’t even shout or interrupt in the holding area before the Contest of Champions. He merely spoke calmly and quietly, as if all the thunder and electric charge had fizzled out of him. The loss of his hair hurt almost as bad as the memory of broken bones and bruised limbs conjured up when the Hulk stepped into the stadium.

She almost couldn’t contain her relief when she found out it had been cut against his will. He hadn’t meant to cut her out of his life as quickly and as easily as chopping off locks.

Instead of Thor’s room, she finds herself standing in front of her own door. She only wonders at that mistake for a moment, before she realizes she made the decision without even knowing. She enters her room.

Her reflection greets her from the mirror. The flowing, dark hair and green eyes staring back at her are identical to her masculine or androgynous self. But her chest has filled out and her hips are slightly wider. Her leather trousers and jacket have transformed into a black and green gown of gossamer fabric that flows like water down her body and pools at the hem on the floor.

She has spent years growing her raven hair so it will look this way, slightly wavy, sleek, and rolling over her shoulders. She’s not particularly thrilled at the idea of losing it again.

And she can’t just cut it chin-length and be done with it. Thor’s hair now is _short_. Loki knows her daggers and even her magic won’t be able to style her hair exactly like Thor’s, but it has to be as short as she can make it. The pendulum swings. On days like this, she wishes she could rip the pendulum out.

She stares at her reflection, willing herself to just bid her hair adieu and fucking get on with it already. Her hand that holds the dagger she didn’t even realize she’d conjured shakes.

Thor hasn’t asked her to do it. She highly doubts he expects her to do it. In fact, she’d wager that he expects her _not_ to do it. It’s been so long since he started to grow his hair for her, and so much has happened. Loki can’t even stand for him to call her _his_ brother or sister or sibling. Maybe he doesn’t even remember why he started growing his hair in the first place.

Not that that matters. Loki remembers. And though Loki can’t possibly understand it, she knows Thor still cares about her. After everything, she has no doubt he’d do the same for her all over again in a second. _That’s_ what matters. _That’s_ why Loki’s standing in front of the mirror like an idiot, holding a dagger to her precious raven hair as much as the idea of losing it hurts. She’s supposed to be selfish, the Goddess of Lies, and yet she’s doing something _for_ her brother, instead of _to_ him. When was the last time she’d done such a thing? Her mind promptly conjures images of the last week, causing Ragnarok at Thor’s behest, fighting by his side, returning to him and Asgard even after Thor left her twitching and seizing as electricity coursed through her body, finding out everything she could about the Grandmaster’s champion and betting in favor of Thor (whatever she’d told her brother).

 _In peacetime_ , she clarifies for her subconscious. When had she ever done something for her brother before their sister entered the picture?

She sighs and rolls her eyes. The pendulum swings. _Just do it, Loki_ , she thinks. She remembers the sound of Thor’s laughter from far away when she’d arrived back on Asgard. She remembers the fondness in his voice when they met back up and all he said was, _“You’re late,”_ like he’d known she would follow him to the end of the world, even now. She remembers being held in his arms on Svartalfheim as he thought he was watching her die. She remembers his features softening the slightest bit in the prison when she let the glamour fade and he saw truly what Mother’s death had done to her. She remembers laughing with him, running races, his infectious joy whenever he witnessed her magic when they were children.

She remembers yesterday, when he reached out, as though to touch her, and echoed her words back to her. _“Never doubt that I love you.”_ She’d been in the middle of lying to his face when she’d last said the words, but there wasn’t a hint of a lie in Thor’s voice. (And she’s starting to seriously wonder if there had even been a lie in hers.)

_“Am I ‘your’ anything anymore?” She’d asked._

_His eye speaks the truth before his mouth does._ Yes. Always, you are mine, _it says._

And it’s this memory of just yesterday, more than any of the others, that pushes her to do it.

“Being good is so inconvenient,” she tells her reflection, and at long last, her dagger meets her hair.

The first chop doesn’t hurt nearly as much as she thought it would, but it’s still a shock to see her long, precious hair clenched in her fist. She wonders if this was how Thor felt. Then she rolls her eyes and pushes away the sappy sentiment and gets back to work.

  


Loki’s gender has shifted to a man by the time he’s done, but the face looking back at him in the mirror is still enough to shock him into numbness. He stares as he sheathes his dagger and vanishes the shorn locks by magic. It’s not as short as Thor’s, but it hasn’t been this short since he was a child. Even before Thor’s botched coronation, he’d at least been able to put ribbons in it when he wanted. It is far too short for that now.

But he couldn’t flee his own reflection, so he swallows the last remaining bits of grief for his lost hair. He nods once to the short-haired Loki in the mirror and sweeps out of the room, changing his clothes back to the leather pants and jacket with a thought.

He knocks once at Thor’s door, and is just about to flee back to his room, thinking _Stupid, stupid. This was stupid._ But the pendulum and his anxiety are silent for fucking once and Thor is speaking through the door.

“I’m fine, Hulk. Go away.”

He could run now, escape to his room or the common room (no, not there, he corrects himself. The Valkyrie would laugh herself hoarse at him. He’s not ready for her to see him like this yet.). He could avoid Thor for another few days, think of something to say when Thor finally caught up with him.

Instead, he says, “I am not that menacing green giant. Open this door.”

Thor does, immediately, as if he was waiting just on the other side. “Loki,” he says as he opens it. “Where the hell have you--” He stops, his one-eyed gaze (still startling to Loki) flitting from Loki’s face to his shorn hair. “Loki,” he says again, not bothering to finish his sentence.

“Yes, you said that already, brother.” Loki says, pushing away the need to _run, run now, you stupid shit_. “Let me in,” he says gruffly.

Thor’s too shocked to argue, to demand to know why Loki’s been avoiding him. He just opens the door wider and backs out of the way. Loki follows and closes the door behind him.

“Your hair.” Thor says softly.

“Yes.”

“You cut it.”

“Yes,” Loki says again, careful to keep the emotion out of his voice. He can’t help a brief glance at himself in Thor’s mirror, however.

“But you love your hair.”

“And you love yours,” Loki counters.

They’re having a different conversation here, behind the superficial words about their now-matching short haircuts. Loki knows it, and when he slides his blank gaze back to Thor, he can tell that Thor knows it, too. And he can see something in Thor’s piercing blue eye, something that tells him that Thor remembers full well why he grew out his hair in the first place. Loki is hit with the sudden and inexplicable urge to cry.

“It’s just hair.” Loki says, softer and more fragile than he’d meant to. He shrugs indifferently for emphasis, but before he can react, Thor is pulling him into a crushing hug.

“You know it’s not,” Thor says. “Is it?”

“It’s not.” Loki whispers, hesitating for a moment before wrapping his arms around his brother and resting his head on Thor’s shoulder. “It’s not,” Loki says again, “But you would do the same for me. You _have_ done the same for me.”

“I remember,” Thor says, his tone warm and his breath just as warm against Loki’s neck. Loki closes his eyes. He remembers his little arms wrapped tightly around Thor’s neck many years before, trying to imagine Thor with long, blond hair, and being unable to at the time. Thor’s short hair now is just as startling and unbelievable. He misses it brushing against his cheek as he hugged his brother.

“Thank you,” Loki whispers. “I don’t think I ever thanked you, then.”

“Thank _you_ , Loki. Thank you for this, now.” Thor replies, reaching up one hand to touch Loki’s shortened hair.

Loki feels wetness pricking his eyes and reaches up to wipe it away before Thor pulls back to look at him. He thinks he’s managed to hide the traitorous tears, but Thor smiles fondly at him in the way that says his brother knows.

“Are you my brother or my sister today?” Thor asks again. He watches Loki with his single eye crinkling with gentle fondness that makes Loki’s heart ache. Loki doesn’t throw accusations at Thor this time; he’s already tired of that.

Instead he huffs out a harsh laugh and shakes his head. “It’s been a long day, Thor.”

Thor is smiling when Loki looks back at him. Thor remembers those words, Loki knows, and he knows what is meant by them. Not all days are like this, and in fact most aren't, but Loki has experienced enough of them for Thor to know what he means.

“You are mine.” Thor assures, as the look in his eye had yesterday. Then he changes his question, and it warms Loki all over, more than the memories, more than the usual question, more than Thor’s embrace. “At this moment, Loki, are you my brother or my sister?”

Loki steps toward Thor once more. He returns Thor’s smile. _Your everything, always._ “Your brother.” He says, and Thor beams. Loki knows it’s not that Thor prefers having a brother that makes him light up with his answer, but that today, Loki has included the pronoun. ‘Your’ is confirming, reassuring, as tentative and affectionate and comforting as “I’m here.”

Thor closes the small distance between them and rests his hands on his brother’s, his sister’s, his sibling’s shoulders. “Never doubt.” He says, and now Loki is beaming. It is rare that he shows his emotions, and then it is usually only when he is acting or when his feelings are too big to conceal. He knows, and when he sees Thor’s small nod, knows that Thor knows, that it is the second reason today.

“I love you, too,” Loki admits. That’s never changed. He just doesn’t know how to show it sometimes, when he’s jealous or angry or his mind is scarred from torture or grief.

And he knows, just as he always has, deep down, that he will always find his way home to his brother. No one loves him more, in spite of everything that’s happened and in spite of everything that Loki is. And Loki loves no one more than Thor.

But then Thor is laughing and ruffling his short hair and Loki is trying to push his brother off him. “I take it back! I take it back!” he cries, but he is laughing so hard it is making him breathless.

“You don’t.” Thor says assuredly, continuing to tease his little brother.

_I don’t._


End file.
